<\/p>\n
Immunotherapy has become the standard first line of defense against melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, but for a meaningful share of patients, it either doesn\u2019t work or eventually stops working. Until now, options for those patients have been limited. As reported by Dermatology Times<\/em>, the FDA has granted accelerated approval to a new treatment called Tudriqev, used together with the immunotherapy drug nivolumab, for adults with advanced melanoma that kept progressing despite prior treatment.<\/p>\n Ahead, a brief rundown of what to know about Tudriqev, what the trial data shows and more.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Tudriqev is injected directly into melanoma lesions, including ones that sit deeper in the body, with imaging used to guide the process. It\u2019s built from a modified virus designed to target tumor cells while also prompting the immune system to fight the cancer more broadly, then paired with nivolumab, a checkpoint inhibitor drug (sold under the brand name Opdivo) that helps the immune system recognize and attack cancer cells, to help sustain that response.<\/p>\n In the study behind this approval, 24.2 percent of the 91 patients evaluated responded to the treatment, and for those who did, the response lasted a median of 14.1 months. The therapy also worked on tumors that hadn\u2019t been directly injected, not just the ones treated.<\/p>\n Michael K. Wong, MD, PhD, primary investigator of the study, called it an important new tool for a broad range of patients. \u201cThe therapy in combination with nivolumab drives immune activation with a favorable risk-benefit profile,\u201d he said, \u201cand can be injected into superficial and visceral lesions.\u201d<\/p>\n Side effects were mostly mild to moderate, including nausea, fatigue and injection site reactions, though serious side effects occurred in some patients, and the treatment carries warnings around infection risk from the modified virus it\u2019s built on.<\/p>\n Melanoma is the fifth most common cancer in the U.S. About half of patients don\u2019t respond to standard checkpoint immunotherapy in the first place, and more than half of those who do respond eventually see their cancer progress again. Sam Guild, president of AIM at Melanoma, called the approval a meaningful step for that group. \u201cEvery year, more than 8,500 people die of melanoma in the U.S., and new treatment options are urgently needed,\u201d Guild said.<\/p>\n For patients who\u2019ve exhausted standard immunotherapy, Tudriqev offers something that\u2019s been in short supply: a second-line option built specifically for their situation, delivered straight into the tumor rather than through another round of infusions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Immunotherapy has become the standard first line of def […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2807,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nichebeaty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2806"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nichebeaty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nichebeaty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nichebeaty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nichebeaty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nichebeaty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nichebeaty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nichebeaty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nichebeaty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nichebeaty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}How Tudriqev Works<\/h2>\n
What the Tudriqev Trial Data Shows<\/h2>\n
Why Tudriqev Approval Matters<\/h2>\n